Giro Whirgear, Warlock Extraordinaire
by Hyliian
Summary: Mages. Always making their spellbooks needlessly complicated. When a wayward mage portal sends Giro to Thedas, he is not amused. At least the height jokes have stopped.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: **_So I've had this idea floating around my head for a while now. I've never written a crossover before! It should be... something. Right? Heh. _

_This is either going to be incredibly entertaining or horrendously awful. Maybe both? Oh well! Let me get the customary "I own nothing" out of the way._

_Bioware owns Dragon Age, and Blizzard owns Warcraft. I own... myself. That... didn't come out right. All the WoW characters are made up off the top of my head, so if it sounds like your character, it's NOT. It's just an evil twin. Or a good twin. Or a distant third cousin twice removed. Or something._

_Yes._

* * *

><p>He had forgotten how <em>bright<em> Stormwind was.

Giro blinked and rubbed his eye, squinting. When you spend two solid months in the dark recesses of Ironforge, lit only by the occasional brazier and sparks from metal grinding together, suddenly being thrust under the open sky is _alarming._

He feels like a kobold. One of those kobolds who stay in caves for their entire lives just waiting for some wayward adventurer to come in and slaughter them all. And take their candle.

Minus the slaughtering part.

Giro was good at not getting himself slaughtered. He sighed and resigned himself to yet another eventful day of playing _Don't-Get-Stepped-On_ as he glued himself to the side of the road, peering uneasily at all the humans and night elves and whatnot that were walking around, tall and seemingly unable to look at their own feet when they walk.

Put him on the battlefield or pit him against a dragon, and he's a tiny ball of demonic, agonizing death and destruction. But drop him on the streets of Stormwind's Trade District and he struggles just to not end up underfoot.

He toyed with the idea of just calling his dreadsteed and trampling all these idiots, but after his incident with an irate priest who didn't appreciate getting a face-full of demon horse, he chose to walk.

Priests were scary when upset.

His stay in Ironforge had been a pleasant throwback to before his adventuring days, back when excitement consisted of getting a new machine to not blow up in his face rather than not getting chewed on by a dragon.

Dragons really didn't like him. They tended to ignore the shiny glory-hounds wearing full plate screaming in their faces and came right at _him_.

He'd gotten _really_ good at split-second soulstoning.

Giro had been a great engineer, once, back before he'd figured out that summoning demons out of thin air was monumentally more rewarding than building replicas of things other engineers had already figured out how to make. He hadn't tinkered in _years_, so his visit to Ironforge had turned out to be more bittersweet than relaxing.

His fingers had been _itching_ to build something, and eventually he'd given up on restraint and locked himself in his room at the inn, churning out mechanical squirrels and a stack of bombs taller than his voidwalker. It had been incredibly frustrating to be so _desperate_ to craft things. He wasn't even an engineer anymore. Not by trade.

No, he was an alchemist and a tailor, now. The guild had needed him to be, so he'd given up engineering in favor of more… _arcane_ pursuits.

"_Make one of the mages do those. They love being all… magic-y,"_ he'd protested, only to be treated with that patented Guild-Master glare that had him fidgeting awkwardly until he agreed just to escape its soul-searing stare.

It was amazing, considering the Guild-Master wasn't that much taller than he was, but for a dwarf, the man could _loom_. He made the draenei seem like midgets when he was in full Righteous Indignation mode.

Giro sighed and fiddled idly with the hilt of his dagger as he walked. It was incredibly difficult to find gnome-sized magical staves. And cog knows he'd tried. Most, if not all, of the really good weapons dropped by enemies were sized for a human. He'd gone so far as to try using a wand as a staff once. It… hadn't worked out well.

So, he'd taken to using a dagger that could honestly pass for a longsword in his hands, since at least he wouldn't have to drag it along awkwardly behind him. At least being bullied into picking up tailoring meant he didn't have to rely on hand-me-downs from the dwarf priests or the gnome mages he knew. He could make his _own_ robes, thank you very much.

A boot connected with his side and sent him skidding into the wall, and he glared at the snickering warrior going on his merry way. The kid couldn't have been more than a novice, at best, if his shabby armor was anything to go by. A single shadow bolt would be enough to put him on a first class flight to the graveyard, but…

Giro straightened his robe and fixed his collar, shaking his head sharply to the side with a steadying breath.

_He's not worth the mana, Giro. Just keep walking. Be the bigger man._

He smirked at that and kept going. He had an appointment to keep. It was apparently a Big Deal, seeing as how Pnubris himself had asked him to come. It wasn't often the Guild-Master summoned him when a raid wasn't imminent, and he was hoping this meant he'd _finally_ be promoted to officer, where he belonged. He'd been part of this guild since it'd been _founded_ almost six years ago, but he was still stuck down with the damn _recruits_ just because he'd made a passing comment on the attractiveness of the leader's wife.

It had been a joke!

Everyone knows dwarf women don't exist.

With a final, steadying breath, Giro hopped up the steps to the massive, newly renovated Bank of Stormwind, stopping to catch his breath at the top. Stairs. Such a _human_ concept. In Ironforge, everything is nice and level, and where it's not, there are _ramps_.

He spotted Pnubris immediately. It was hard not to. The man radiated magnificence just by standing there, hands clasped behind him, Immolation armor glowing, drawing the envious eye of everyone who passed him just _because_.

Everyone who was anyone knew Pnubris.

Giro had never commanded attention like that. Well, there was that one time, back when the Nemesis armor was the most amazing thing _ever_, and he'd been the only warlock in all of Ironforge to have a full set. That had lasted a few days before Pnubris had shown up in all that amazingly glowy paladin armor and stolen the spotlight. Again.

But Giro didn't mind. It was difficult to be adequately mysterious when you're glowing like a damn Beacon of Light. And Pnubris _needed_ to be attention-grabbing. That was his _job_.

Giro cleared his throat politely, fingers still twitching on the hilt of his dagger, pasting on a friendly smile for a man who had once been his friend, and was now his leader.

Pnubris turned, face masked by his helm, and Giro was immensely annoyed. You'd think the man would have the decency to at least talk to him face-to-face. It was incredibly unnerving talking to a glowing mask without any indication of what the man underneath it was thinking.

That was probably the point.

"You wanted to see me, sir?" Giro asked, voice dripping with false sincerity, eye twitching in that damned nervous tick he seemed to spontaneously contract whenever he was within ten feet of his illustrious Guild-Master. No one could put him on such a knife-edge of tension and anticipation like good 'ol Pnubris Lighthammer.

"There's a new recruit," he began without any sort of preamble, and Giro checked a sigh. "A mage. Human. He's a _close personal friend_ of mine," Giro hated those words, "and he needs help with some of his spells."

Giro blinked. "With all due respect, sir, wouldn't it make more sense to ask another… er… _mage_ to do that?"

"They've tried. And failed." Pnubris and his damn mask. Giro wished he could see what the man was thinking. "I need him ready for the Bastian in two days. If you can pull this off, I'll see to your promotion."

Was he _bribing_ Giro with promises of promotion? Giro didn't bother to hide his scowl. The odds of him teaching a mage how to do _anything_ other than get themselves killed were about as high as him learning how to use a shield.

But he _wanted_ that promotion, and damn it Pnubris _knew_ that. He would bet ten gold that the man was smirking beneath that stupid helmet of his.

With a curt nod Giro turned on his heels and stalked away, hands clenched, shadows and flame flickering around his fingers as he went.

Damn him.

Damn him to the _Void._

* * *

><p>The human was useless. Giro rubbed a hand over his face and tugged on his beard, barely resisting the urge to set the worthless mage on fire.<p>

"Have you _ever_ cast a portal spell before?" Giro asked, irritated. The human scoffed.

"Of _course_ I have. I just… haven't done it in a while. That's all."

Sure. And Giro secretly loved wearing women's clothing.

He snickered a bit, thinking back to the good 'ol days of running Blackrock Spire, back when Pnubris was still a lowly mortal. Oh Nefarius and his taunting. That had been a day to remember.

"_Fools!"_ Nefarius had spat, incensed. _"Kill the one in the dress!"_

Giro had, of course, been the only member of their group in anything resembling a dress. He'd stopped mid-cast, turned to Lord Victor Nefarius, and shaken his fist, scowling. _"It's a ROBE!"_

Pnubris had never let him live that down.

Shaken out of his musings by the unmistakable sound of a spell fizzing out, Giro threw up his hands in exasperation. How mages managed to get gear like his without knowing how to do so much as cast a simple portal spell, Giro would never know.

With a frown, he snatched the spellbook from the frustrated human, ignoring his protests, and skimmed it. Mage spellbooks were so unnecessarily complicated. Not like warlock grimoires, whose instructions varied from _"Chant this in a creepy fashion," _to _"Wiggle your fingers like this."_

No, this fascinating read said something along the lines of: _"Dissolve the arcane fluctuation so that the upsurge in esoteric magics refabricates the Coil. Avoid coming in direct contact with the Twisting Nether AT ALL COSTS. You are a scholar of the Arcane, not a meddler of demons and Taint."_

Well no wonder the boy couldn't make heads or tails of this.

Giro threw the book back at the mage's head—he hadn't bothered paying attention when the lad introduced himself—and stroked his bushy white beard.

"Just…" Giro sighed, irritated, "Just try again. I don't know. Imagine where you want to end up and just… _cast it._"

When in doubt, simplify.

The human sighed and focused, and Giro hid his smirk with his hand. The mage had the funniest Casting Face he'd ever seen. It looked like he was constipated.

He almost fell out of his chair when the portal shimmered into view, leaving the mage gasping for breath and sweating from the effort. Giro hopped down and approached, shuffling, peering into the portal. He didn't recognize the place on the other side. A Horde city, maybe? Wouldn't that just be perfect?

Giro almost made the mage test it, but Pnubris would have his head if he dropped the most inexperienced mage—_a close personal friend—_right on top of Orgrimmar or somewhere equally unpleasant.

"All right. Wait here while I see where this goes. If I end up somewhere useless like Shattrath, I am coming back and I will feed you to my felhunter."

With a final breath, he touched his fingers to the portal's surface and the world went white.


	2. Chapter 2

This was most definitely not Orgrimmar. So, that was a plus.

Giro blinked, feeling oddly disoriented, and shook his head to clear it, blinking. A forest? He was in a forest?

Oh _cogs_. Was this Darnassus? Of all the useless…

Wait. No. This was clearly _not_ Darnassus because Darnassus is not a forest.

Darnassus is a tree.

He saw plenty of trees, but none that were shaped like a city or full of buxom, scantily clad night elf women.

Giro rubbed his head and furrowed his brow. Where had that idiot mage sent him? Oh well. It was obviously a bust.

With a grumble, he reached for his pack…

…and froze.

He whirled in a circle, searching with frantic hands and eyes for his backpack, and met only empty air. And what was he _wearing?_ It looked like his novice robes, the short little thing he'd worn back when he first became a warlock neophyte. Was this some kind of prank? Was Pnubris behind this?

Giro scowled. He wouldn't put it past the sadistic paladin to send him into the middle of _nowhere_ with nothing but a threadbare robe to his name. Of course, how he'd managed to get such a tremendously awful mage to cast something of this magnitude…

He frowned. No backpack meant no food. No map. No handy-dandy magic whistles for his mounts. No hearthstone. Oh _cogs_.

_No hearthstone_.

He was screwed.

He turned in a circle as he surveyed the forest, trying to recall ever being in a… well; _swamp_ was too friendly a word for what this was. _Bog_ seemed more appropriate. _Quagmire_, maybe.

Whatever it was, it was already sloshing around in his little cloth shoes.

Fan-_tastic_.

With a final, heartfelt curse, he kicked at the nearest tree root and started walking. He hated swamps. No, that wasn't accurate. He hated _nature._ He'd much rather be snuggled up in a bed with a good book, maybe watching his succubus dance for him. She was a surprisingly good dancer.

_Wait. My…_ Giro smacked his forehead. Why was he _walking_? He was a warlock! Warlocks don't _walk_.

He closed his eyes and felt the shadows pull at his fingers, smiling as he heard the distant whinny of his flaming steed, and then jerked back as a searing pain jumped straight from his fingers to his head.

"For the love of Mekkatorque!" he spat, clutching at his face as the pain throbbed somewhere near the back of his skull. Now on top of everything else, he had a headache.

How absolutely _delightful_.

So cruising through the quagmire on his dreadsteed was a no-go. Giro frowned. He'd never had a spell just… fizzle out like that. It was almost as if the plane he had been reaching for just… _wasn't there_.

Well that was an alarming thought. No Void? No Twisting Nether? Surely not! It was just… a fluke. Nerves. Yes, that had to be it.

With a concerned grimace, he muttered the incantation for summoning his imp—a nice, safe, non-life-threatening spell that surely wouldn't…

…aaaand there's the pain again. Giro swore explosively and began to kick his feet at whatever was in reach, succeeding only in stubbing his toe on a particularly nasty root, which he grabbed and hopped on his good foot, cursing. Was this some kind of joke? What kind of sick prank _is_ this? Taking away his Dreadsteed of Xoroth was one thing, but stripping him of his ability to summon demons? The very things that made him a warlock?

That was a step too far.

Pnubris would _burn_ for this.

Giro blinked. Burn. Maybe…

He raised his hand and almost wept in relief when the Incinerate snaked along the ground and ignited the tree he'd been kicking. At least he wasn't _completely_ inept now. Eyeing the flaming tree, he went through his entire repertoire of spells, drawing mana from his own life when he ran low.

Seemed like the only things he _couldn't_ do were the ones requiring him to tap into the Nether for his demons. Well… it was better than nothing. Although a Demonologist without his demons is pretty much screwed.

With a pout, Giro kicked idly at the burnt root again and started walking, shaking his foot every few steps in a vain attempt to dislodge the sludge accumulating between his toes. Damn nature. The druids can keep their happy-go-lucky _'the trees are our friends!'_ ways.

Giro would burn this place to the damn _ground_ if he had to.

By the time he reached a piece of the bog that didn't try to sink him up to his waist in filth and muck, he was twitchy and about ready to pull his own beard out in frustration. His sandals were making awful _squish_ sounds with every step, and his eye ticked in that way previously unique to Pnubris. With an inarticulate cry, he stumbled and tore the shoes off his feet and hurled them at the ground with a vengeance.

The little _puff_ sound they made when they hit the stone wasn't particularly gratifying.

Wait. Stone? Giro blinked and looked down. He was on a road? Since _when?_ He glanced back up and saw the beginnings of what looked like battlements in the distance. He almost fell to his knees in relief. A building! Civilization! Now he can hitch a gryphon ride back to Stormwind and tan that mage's arse for sending him out to this Light-forsaken _quagmire_.

He broke into an awkward jog for the distant fortress, hiking up his robe as he ran. When the smell hit him, he had a brief moment of horror that he'd stumbled onto a _Horde_ encampment—wouldn't that just be his luck—but realized that, no, he had in fact just tripped over a body.

He flailed his arms for balance and faceplanted onto the path, spitting out dirt as he turned to glare at the corpse that had _dared_ trip Giro Whirgear. And then he paused.

It was roughly the size of a dwarf, but it wasn't any dwarf _he'd_ ever seen. It was black and shriveled and even in death it seemed to be leering at him with a wide, toothy grin. Now, Giro was not squeamish. His first introduction to the darker side of magic had been to drain the life from a man until nothing was left but a soulless husk.

But this… _thing_… was just… unnatural. And that was saying something coming from a man who'd once ridden piggyback on his doomguard just for the fun of it.

It also smelled worse than an orc.

With a grimace he pushed himself back to his feet and quickly kept walking. He didn't fancy seeing one of those things _alive_. When he finally stumbled up to the large fortress, he almost thought it was too late and the place had been destroyed. But no, that was just how it was.

The place was in serious disrepair, and Giro ran a critical eye over the nearest crumbling wall, shaking his head. The dwarven masons he knew would be tearing their clothing in anguish if they were to see the state of this place.

It didn't help that the first person he saw was a human. A tall, holier-than-thou _human_. Figures.

And what was _with_ the state of that armor? Not even that smug warrior novice that'd kicked him in Stormwind had been wearing gear that shoddy. He couldn't sense any enchantments off it at all. Surely a man posted as a guard would at least have enchanted gear. All the guards he'd ever met were all the Elite, the best of the best, able to cut down even Pnubris at his best in a matter of moments.

Not this guy, obviously.

With a sigh, Giro trotted up to him and waited to be acknowledged. He tapped his bare foot against the stone when it became obvious the human didn't know he was there.

He cleared his throat pointedly and the man jumped, startled, looking around wildly.

"Down _here_," he insisted with a sigh. The man looked down at him and widened his eyes. When in doubt, be polite. "Would you mind telling me how far to the nearest gryphon master? I need to get back to Stormwind."

The wide-eyed stare did not lesson. "What in the name of the Maker is this thing?" he whispered, almost to himself.

Giro huffed, indignant. "Thing? I'm a gnome, you cog-brained idiot." Polite wasn't working, obviously. "Now you can either point me towards the flight master, or I can go find him myself." Giro paused, growing uneasy. "There _is_ a flight master here, yes? I didn't stumble onto some backwater community that doesn't have one?"

The human turned panicked eyes and a loud voice towards a group off in the distance. "Harric! There's a bearded midget over here!"

_Bearded midget?_ Giro blinked and then scowled. How _dare_ this impudent, vertically blessed man call him a midget! Without a thought, Giro called shadows to his fingers and chucked a shadow bolt at the man, sending him flying backwards. When he didn't get back up, Giro scoffed.

"Oh come on. That was an apprentice shadow bolt at _best_. There's no _way_ I could have…"

But he had. Apparently, an apprentice shadow bolt was enough to one-shot the guards here. Giro hesitated. Aaaand now he was surrounded by guards, all pointing crude swords at him.

"Er…" he started, flustered, "Oops?"

_Cogs_.


	3. Chapter 3

This was, beyond a shadow of a doubt, the most humiliating position Giro had ever found himself in.

A _cage_? Really? What were these humans, _gnolls?_

He'd heard a few of the men talking about him. They had, apparently, decided to name him the Tiny Rage Demon. He'd perked up at that. Rage demon? There were demons around? Maybe that meant all wasn't lost for the small Demonologist.

No one seemed really interested in listening to him when he spoke. Apparently blasting that guard to the Void—or whatever counted for the Void around here—had made them lose the ability to hear him. At all.

An elderly woman had been coming around periodically to cast spells at him, and he's scowled and cursed at her until she'd finally left, muttering about 'ungrateful midgets' under her breath.

Again with the midgets. These humans weren't very original, were they? He sat with his arms crossed, pouting, as he glared through the bars of the rusty cage. It wasn't that the cage was actually doing much to hold him in; there wasn't a cage built yet that could hold a gnome when he puts his mind to it. But he still didn't know where the flight master was, and considering the treatment he'd gotten from the guards, he doubted they'd be willing to point him in the right direction.

He really wished he had his map. Or a staff. Yes, a staff would be nice. He'd even settle for a human-sized one.

He sighed as another human girl headed towards him. She was in robes though. A mage? A priest? If she was about to cast more spells at him, he was going to drop a Curse of Agony on her head and watch her writhe.

She stopped nearby and stared at him a while, and Giro just snorted at the scrutiny. "What are you?"

He blinked. She was talking to him. That was good. He could work with that. "Like I told the guards, I'm a gnome. A very irritated gnome."

"They say you used magic. Are you a mage?"

Giro scoffed, waving a hand to dismiss such ridiculous notions. "A _mage_? Not even a little bit! Those arcane lovers are all flashy spells and complicated tomes. _I _am a warlock."

The woman blinked. "But you used magic," she insisted.

Giro sighed. "_Yes_, but using magic does not automatically make you a mage. Priests use magic to heal, and _they're_ not mages." Was the girl daft? "Warlocks use shadows and demons—"

The girl jerked back and pulled her staff to rest in front of her in a strange defensive position. "Demons? Are you a blood mage?"

Again with the mages. "I already told you," Giro insisted, "I'm a _warlock_. Not a mage. And _blood_ mage? What in Light's name is_ that_ supposed to mean? Is that a cult?"

The staff lowered a bit. "Blood mages use the blood of their foes to power their spells. They can control minds and summon demons."

Giro tugged on his beard thoughtfully. "I can't control minds," he admitted. "Priests can. And blood for mana? Well… I can turn my _own_ life force into mana, but I can't do that to anyone else. And I _used_ to be able to summon demons." He frowned. These _blood mages_ seemed like the warlock equivalent of this place's magic. Too bad the girl had sounded horrified with the very idea. Another close-minded mage then.

"Blood mages are evil," she informed him in a tone that brooked no argument. "If you're a blood mage, we'll have to give you to the Templars."

Giro gave up on trying to convince her that he was a _warlock_, instead seizing on the unfamiliar word. "Templars? What's that?"

The young mage blinked, dumbfounded. "You don't know what a Templar is?" Giro shook his head. "They're… knights of the Chantry trained to hunt mages."

Well that was good. Giro wasn't a mage.

"They have abilities that nullify magic."

"Everyone has those," Giro snorted dismissively. Almost every class he could think of had some kind of ability that interrupted magic. Even Giro could use his felhunter in that capacity. Thinking about poor Phuufen made him frown.

The woman was looking at him oddly now. "Where did you come from?"

Giro raised a brow. "Stormwind. An errant mage po—" his eyes widened and he lurched towards the bars. "You're a mage!" he shouted, excited. "You can make me a portal out of here!"

"A… what?"

"A portal! You know, like to the major cities?" Giro hesitated. "Please tell me you know how to cast portals."

"I… portals?" the woman looked utterly confused. "You mean like… to the Fade?"

Now it was Giro's turn to be confused. "The what?"

She frowned. "The Fade. The place where mages get their magic. You cast a spell; surely you've drawn on the Fade before."

Giro cocked a brow. "Am I going to have to explain the whole _I am not a mage_ thing again?"

Judging by her incredulous expression, he was.

_Great. Just great._


	4. Chapter 4

"Ferelden."

The young mage nodded, smiling as if she were explaining this to a small child. Giro did not appreciate the comparison.

"I'm in… _Ferelden._ And that's in… Thedas."

Another nod.

Thedas. Where in the cog was _Thedas?_ Nowhere in Azeroth, that was damn sure. Somehow, somewhere, he was certain this was Pnubris' fault. Blasted paladin.

"So there isn't a flight master here, I'm guessing."

"A what?"

Giro sighed. Well, that answered _that_ question. "No gryphons?"

"Griffins?" the mage replied, looking excited and more than a little nostalgic. "Grey Wardens _used_ to fly on griffins, but they all died out a long time ago."

So he ended up somewhere even _more_ backwards than Orgrimmar. Excellent. He tugged on his beard, frowning. If they didn't have gryphons, how did people get around? Surely they weren't all using _ground mounts_ still. How very six years ago.

He glanced around, but didn't see so much as a single horse or tiger tethered anywhere. "If you can't fly, what do you use for mounts?"

She stared at him as if he'd started speaking in Gnomish, and he wondered idly if he _had._ "Mounts? You mean horses? We don't have many of those in Ferelden. Too… _Orlesian._"

_Orlesian_. Was that a curse? It sure sounded like one. He filed that away for future use. So no horses. Good great sweating kobolds did they _walk_ everywhere? It was his neophyte days all over again!

Giro fiddled with his thumbs as he wondered as to the best way to delicately phrase his next question. "So… er… from my wondrous treatment thus far, I'm guessing there aren't any… how do I put this… _gnomes_ here? In Ferelden?"

She shook her head, as if telling him he was the only representative of his entire race present on a continent wasn't a big deal, and shrugged. "Nope. The closest thing I know of would be the dwarves, and they pretty much stay underground in Orzammar."

_Orzammar? Did she mean Orgimmar? Dwarves are living in an orc city? What the cog?_

Wait. Dwarves!

"There are dwarves?" Giro was all but bouncing. Dwarves were stonemasons! Surely _they_ were more civilized than this backwater community that has a strange vulnerability to shadow bolts. "At least _something_ about this place is similar."

Now she seemed amused. "I don't think there are any surface dwarves in camp right now."

_Surface_ dwarves? Were there… different _kinds_ of dwarf, here? Maybe things weren't so similar after all. Giro frowned. What _other_ kind of dwarves were there? Bearded dwarves? Fat dwarves? Purple dwarves? Dwarves Without a Sense of Humor? How did she justify classifying a race by where they _lived? _That was like calling High-King Mekkatorque a "Gear-fetish gnome." You know. Because he'd stood in between those two gears for all those years. Just… standing. Yeah.

"So no gryphons." A nod. "No horses." Another nod. "And apparently everyone here has a mage-phobia, and can't tell the difference between a warlock and a sparkly man in a dress." A frown, but a third nod, accompanied by a disapproving stare worthy of Pnubris Lighthammer himself. "Fan. Cogging. _Tastic._" He ran a hand over his face and pulled on his beard. He was going to lose all the hair in it if something didn't go _right_ for once. "Hm. So. Don't suppose you could, I don't know, _let me out of this damn cage before I drop a Seed of Corruption on your ass?_"

"You're going to plant a tree on my… ass?"

Giro put his head in his hands and sighed. This was going to be a long day.

* * *

><p>This human had a very impressive beard. Giro was a bit jealous of it, actually. Sure his beard was big and poofy and nice to pull on when he's irritated, but he couldn't pull off something of <em>that<em> magnitude. A dwarf would kill for a beard like that. The little magelett who'd been interrogating / enlightening him for the past half hour had finally had enough of his threats and gone off and brought back Mr. Beard of Doom.

Giro _supposed_ the man had a name, but he'd been too busy staring at the beard to really hear it. Humans with beards usually just looked ridiculous. But _come on…_ this guy? This wasn't even fair.

"The guards are saying you used magic to slay one of the soldiers posted at the gates," Mr. Beard prompted. "A single spell. Not many mages I've met could claim to be able to do the same."

_For the love of everything that has ever run on wheels I am NOT A MAGE. _"Warlock."

"Pardon?" Mr. Beard frowned. At least, Giro thought he did. It was hard to tell. Because of the beard.

"Warlock. Not mage. Warlock. War. Lock. _Warlock._ There's a difference."

Mr. Beard nodded, as if he gave a damn, and Giro appreciated the gesture, however patronizing. "Right… warlock. My apologies. Solona tells me you claim to be from beyond Thedas?"

From beyond Thedas. Well that was a nice sugar-coated way of saying "royally screwed."

"You could say that, yes. And I have to admit, so far I am not impressed with you people's hospitality. If a foreigner came to Ironforge, we would have set him up in an inn and given him room and board, not locked him in a damn cage and dangled him about like some kind of freak show exhibit fit for the Darkmoon Faire!" Giro sucked in a breath and glared from beneath bushy white brows at Mr. Beard. "I am about one more midget mage comment away from burning this place to the damn _ground_. Sir."

"Most foreigners do not make a habit of killing our soldiers," Mr. Beard pointed out in that damn calm tone of voice that made Giro feel like an idiot. Giro had always hated that voice. He hated it when Pnubris used it, he hated it when his _father_ used it, and he certainly hated it when Bushy Beard here used it.

"Most cities don't hire guards that can be taken out with an apprentice level Shadow Bolt," Giro shot back. "Now are you going to let me out of this cage or what?"

Mr. Beard stroked his Beard of Awesomeness. Giro imagined he got +5 Epic from having it equipped. "I'll speak with Knight-Captain Roeger, see if I can't work something out. Sit tight, Ser Whirgear."

_Ser Whirgear? What is this, primary school? _"Sit tight? Oh. Yeah, sure. Not that I can, you know, go anywhere else. Because of the cage."

Mr. Beard sighed, and it was impressive. He managed to convey exasperation, fondness, irritation, and amusement in a single breath. Giro wished he knew how to do that.

"Solona, go fetch Alistair. His Templar training might be of some use if Roeger agrees to release our small friend here."

"Small friend? Come up here and say that to my face, Mr. Beard!"

Solona pretended he hadn't spoken. "Yes, Duncan."

_Duncan. So THAT'S Mr. Beard's name. I think I'll keep calling him Mr. Beard, though. He doesn't look like a Duncan._

'Duncan,' AKA Mr. Beard, paused and stared at Giro with an arched brow. "Pardon?"

"Hmm?"

"Did you call me _Mr. Beard?_"

"Of course not. That would be ridiculous."

Mr. Beard kept his eyebrow raised as he walked away, and Giro snickered at his back. Humans.

* * *

><p><strong>AN: **_So was I the only one who when they first heard someone mention "Orzammar," I immediately thought of Orgrimmar? There's only a three letter difference. One is full of people living in squalor with incredibly short tempers who believe in-fighting and murdering each other is good politics, and the other is full of orcs. Wait..._

**A/N/N: **_I decided to go ahead and tack on "Ch. 5" onto the end of this, since they were both so short. Remember: Mr. Beard is watching you. Alwaaaaysss waaaatchhhinnngg..._


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